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ABSTRACTTwo-storeyed colonies can be successfully requeened by raising
the original queen and the brood nest above a division board, rearing a young queen from an introduced cell in the bottom storey, and then reuniting both storeys when most advantageous. There is no need to
find queens, and colony manipulation is reduced to a minimum.

Re: Requeening honey bee colonies without dequeening

I'm not sure how that relieves one of finding the original queen. You need to know the box she is in.

I rather like the artificial swarm idea. Move the old queen to a nuc with sufficient stores, nurses, and brood to get a fresh start. Let the old hive raise a queen. If anything goes wrong, you can recombine, or donate brood from the nuc. If you decide to pinch the old queen later, the nuc can be recombined with the original.

Re: Requeening honey bee colonies without dequeening

I combined two queenright colonies this Fall. Repeated attempts to locate an older queen (to remove her) failed over several days during bad weather and I ultimately gave up. The colonies were initially separated by an inner cover with the center hole open, and a sheet of newspaper over that. After a number of days the inner cover was removed from the middle of the stack (the newspaper had been chewed through).

I'll see what's what come Spring. I really didn't have much choice as it was so late in the season and better weather was not to be expected. Unfortunately, neither queen was marked, so unless there are two queens in there when I inspect in the Spring, it isn't likely that I'll know which survived.

If you want to be successful, study successful people and do what they do.
Zone 4a/b

Re: Requeening honey bee colonies without dequeening

Hi Eduardo, I cannot see the point of leaving the older queen to be destroyed. I re queen my hives every spring with my own queen cells as part of my swarm prevention practice, when the spring weather allows. The 2nd season queen with a frame of capped brood becomes a nuc to be sold later. Of course the colony has to be watched for the cell to emerge and eventually for the new queen to start laying.
Johno

Re: Requeening honey bee colonies without dequeening

Hi johno, In my case I may have to eliminate some old queens for the first time, because I do not wish to duplicate my number of hives. On the other hand I am not sure that in my country I can sell in a few months 600 nucs. Purchasing power here is lower than in the US and many beekeepers recover their winter losses by spliting their hives or picking up swarms.

Re: Requeening honey bee colonies without dequeening

I have read in many different sources that you can just place a ready to emerge queen cell in the top of the top honey stores box. The cell will emerge and the virgin will kill the old queen most of the time, as a superceder replacement. There are a couple people here in the forms that do this, I can't recall just who at the moment though.

The ready to emerge cell is to be placed in the top honey storage area to give her some separation from the brood nest area which is below. A virgin queen is programmed to search out and kill other queens, and the old queen is slower as she is full off eggs and actively laying. I have read that this works in a high percentage of the colonies it is done on, and seems much easier than what is described in the link in the first post above.

Re: Requeening honey bee colonies without dequeening

I have read in many different sources that you can just place a ready to emerge queen cell in the top of the top honey stores box.

Yes Ray, I also think some of us do it with success.

However if I find it difficult to sell the 600 nucs, I intend to sell about half. As I am not sure how many, I believe I.W. Forster's proposal fits well with this level of uncertainty. Those who come to sell I'll pass them to another box. Those who I do not sell I'll put out the divider board and let nature take its course.

One question: in Portugal, beekeepers value more nucleus with a new queen compared to a nucleus with a one-year-old queen. I have the impression that in the USA it is the opposite, that you value a queen who has overwinter well. Is it correct?

Re: Requeening honey bee colonies without dequeening

Originally Posted by RayMarler

I have read in many different sources that you can just place a ready to emerge queen cell in the top of the top honey stores box. The cell will emerge and the virgin will kill the old queen most of the time, as a superceder replacement. There are a couple people here in the forms that do this, I can't recall just who at the moment though.

The ready to emerge cell is to be placed in the top honey storage area to give her some separation from the brood nest area which is below. A virgin queen is programmed to search out and kill other queens, and the old queen is slower as she is full off eggs and actively laying. I have read that this works in a high percentage of the colonies it is done on, and seems much easier than what is described in the link in the first post above.

I re-queen that way except I use a queen excluder under the queen cell. I just lift the top box, put on the excluder, pop in the frame that has a couple of queen cells on it, place the cover on, then remove the queen excluder in a couple of weeks. The virgin queen will go through the excluder prior to being mated and will kill the old queen, then leave for her mating flight. A very easy and reliable way to re-queen.

Re: Requeening honey bee colonies without dequeening

stan.vick,
I am curious - why do the bees who have the old queen that is still laying not defend her and kill the new queen. I once saw bees ball a young queen that returned from her mating flight and land on the wrong landing board. I was suprised how quickly they attacked her and she didn't even get in the hive.

Re: Requeening honey bee colonies without dequeening

Originally Posted by billabell

stan.vick,
I am curious - why do the bees who have the old queen that is still laying not defend her and kill the new queen. I once saw bees ball a young queen that returned from her mating flight and land on the wrong landing board. I was suprised how quickly they attacked her and she didn't even get in the hive.

I think it is the lack of or weak queen pheromones of an unmated queen, I have taken a newly emerged queen and placed her at the entrance of a hive and watched her march into the hive unchallenged while there were plenty of guard bees on duty, I did this out of curiosity because I had the same questions that you have. I have used the method many times, so it's not just a fluke, it works time after time.

Re: Requeening honey bee colonies without dequeening

Originally Posted by Eduardo Gomes

One question: in Portugal, beekeepers value more nucleus with a new queen compared to a nucleus with a one-year-old queen. I have the impression that in the USA it is the opposite, that you value a queen who has overwinter well. Is it correct?

I think it depends on the beekeeper you ask. Some want a nuc with queen as early in the season as they can possibly get, and that means an over wintered queen in nuc, which would be available before any spring mated queens. This factor may also play into the location of where the beekeeper is keeping bees. In the far north or north-east where the season starts later, or in the south where the season starts earlier.

Some beekeepers say an over wintered queen that was mated late summer of the year before and over wintered, is a better chance of being a good queen than a recently mated early spring queen. I myself am undecided in this, as there are so many variables in bees, and I've seen both good and not as good queens from the year before, as well as the current year spring queens.

Re: Requeening honey bee colonies without dequeening

The newly mated young after the solstice queen that can overwintered will
withstand the arctic chills here better. Under our normal environment, they can
multiply quickly on hive expansion days. Remember that she is still a 2-3 months young queen but
overwintered nevertheless. So she can carry the colony through. Without these young queens my
mite bomb nuc manipulation cannot be done here. She can often outlay the old 2nd year queen and beat the mites population too. That's why if I can to overwinter as many of these late mated queens as possible. Since she's in the nuc stage, the focus will be on hive expansion and not on swarming impulse on an early Spring flow. On purpose, 3 years in the testing mated and emerged in a hive mite infested level nuc hive. I'm almost there with all the equipment preparation for another round this Spring.

Don't mix foreign bees into a virgin hive. She might get balled 100% of the time! When will you ever learn, huh?

Re: Requeening honey bee colonies without dequeening

I know several beekeepers who have been promoting this method of re-queening in recent years. When I ask about success rate they don't really know; there is just the assumption that the young virgin destroys the old queen. The only way to know for sure is if the old queen is marked. If you are going to follow-up by locating the surviving queen then you might as well find the old queen to begin with and destroy her before inserting the cell to eliminate all doubt. There has been recent discussion about this method within another group and it appears, when a study was actually done, that the success rates are not nearly so good as many think.

Re: Requeening honey bee colonies without dequeening

I am not advocating this method although I may try it modified.
SWM said: "The only way to know for sure is if the old queen is marked. If you are going to follow-up by locating the surviving queen then you might as well find the old queen to begin with and destroy her before inserting the cell to eliminate all doubt."
No, if the old queen is unmarked you just mark the new queen and then you know for sure. Marking is the only way I have of finding queens at my age unless I am lucky that day, and then I have to hope that she doesn't get superseded.
The modification, and it is not really a modification, is just to put the new queen (marked) in a nuc with nurse bees shaken from the hive you are trying to requeen (if possible) and then when she is established and laying do a newspaper combine with the nuc on top. This is not my idea I think others have been doing this with pretty good success just from threads I have read.
This is really stan.vick's method above with the queen cells and an excluder which seems pretty easy and fits well with OTS. Using a cell
I am going to have to find her after emergence and mark her and of course provide an upper entrance for mating probably using a double screen board.